


Io, Saturnalia

by flawedamythyst



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, New Relationship, Saturnalia, academic au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28453524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Nicky and Joe meet up a few days after their first date stretches into a weekend.Written for Jazzrose343
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	Io, Saturnalia

This thing with Joe was so new that Nicky still got a quiet thrill whenever he saw him. It had been little over a fortnight since they’d met at the celebration after Andy’s viva and he kept telling himself he was moving too fast but if anything, Joe was moving even faster. He’d been the one to ask Nicky out on a date and then, when they were still together the morning after it, cuddled together in Nicky’s bed as if they’d slept that way for years, he’d been the one to suggest just spending the whole weekend together.

Nicky hadn’t been able to say ‘yes’ fast enough. And then he’d barely been able to bring himself to leave on Sunday evening to go back to his own tiny student flat.

And now it was two days later, and those two days without seeing Joe had felt like an eternity.

“Nicky!” said Joe, beaming at him as they met on the steps outside the university library. “You look so handsome!”

Nicky glanced down at his outfit of a battered pair of jeans and a green hoodie. “Uh, thanks.”

Joe took his face in two hands and said, very seriously, “I don’t think it’s possible for you to look anything else.” While Nicky was trying not to swoon from that, Joe pulled him in for a kiss and...well.

Some time passed. Nicky wasn’t sure how much, because any time Joe kissed him he lost track of anything else.

“Please tell me you are free this Saturday night,” said Joe once he’d pulled back, while Nicky was trying to catch his breath. “I want to take you for dinner.”

“Ah,” said Nicky, pulling his scattered thoughts together and reaching out to take both Joe’s hands. “That’s what I was going to talk to you about. I’m having a...um... thing on Saturday, and wondered if you wanted to come?”

“A thing,” repeated Joe. “How mysterious.”

The thing was, when Nicky had first come up with the idea while drunk with Booker and Andy, it had seemed like an incredible idea. Now that he was about to explain it to a guy who he wanted to think he was suave and charming and not at all a geek, he was beginning to doubt himself.

Well, too late, he’d already ordered a crate of wine and half an evergreen forest. This was happening, and if it was happening, he wanted Joe to be part of it.

“What do you know about Saturnalia?”

Joe cocked his head slightly. “I know you are doing your doctorate on it,” he said. “Or, well, on the influence of it, at least. I must confess I don’t know much about the festival itself.” Which meant he’d actually been paying attention when Nicky had let his mouth get away from him when they’d first met and spent at least twenty minutes boring the fascinating and handsome stranger by droning on about his thesis. And yet, somehow, Joe had still asked for his number at the end of the night. It was a miracle. 

“It was less a festival and more a wild party,” said Nicky. “Drinking, gambling, all social norms thrown away in the spirit of having a good time, that kind of thing. I, ah, I am hosting a modest reenactment of it with some friends on Saturday, and I wondered if you might like to come.”

Joe stared at him for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever been invited to a pagan festival before,” he said thoughtfully, which was when Nicky realised that inviting a man who was a devout enough Muslim to have got up first thing in the morning to pray even when he was curled up around a lover might be a bit tactless.

“Um,” he said. “Of course I understand if you don’t want to come, we’re not actually engaging in any of the pagan worship or anything, just indulging in some of the customs as a sort of, um, immersive experience for my thesis.”

At least, that was what Booker had called it while Andy had started listing all the ways they could get absolutely, mind-blowingly drunk and wondering out loud why she’d done her PhD on prehistoric cultures relationships with horses when she could have had an excuse to get wasted in the name of research.

Joe laughed. “Of course, that makes complete sense,” he said and that was good, he didn’t sound offended. “I would love to come, Nicky. You will have to tell me what the dress code is. Togas?”

Nicky couldn’t hold in the wide smile spreading across his face. “Thank you,” he said, squeezing Joe’s hands. “No togas, just bright colours, clashing if possible. I’ll send you the email I sent the others, so you know what to expect.”

“I look forward to it,” said Joe, then leaned in to kiss Nicky again. “Just as I look forward to seeing you flushed with wine and calling the early Christians ‘cultural bandits’ again.”

“I don’t have to be drunk for that,” said Nicky.

Joe gave him that wide grin again, his eyes glowing with happiness, and Nicky felt his heart leap. How soon was too soon to tell someone you were in love with them? 

He should wait until at least the weekend, probably. Saturnalia would be a good time for him to throw his usual emotional caution to the wind and celebrate the wild joy that ran through his chest at just the sight of Joe’s smile.

After all, moving too fast just meant they’d end up at their destination quicker, and Nicky really wanted to find out where this thing with Joe was heading, as soon as possible.


End file.
